Since the earliest of times when it has been found necessary or desirable to mete out a prescribed number of small objects, the tedious labor of one or more individuals to physically count out the number of small objects required for a given scenario was typically required. The labors of individuals have been necessary, for example, in counting various commodities of trade including coins, gemstones, pills, or virtually any small object to be conveyed for which exact quantification knowledge is necessary. Owing to the labor-intensive nature of the counting of a large number of small objects, the prior art has become replete with contrivances designed to automatically count large numbers of small objects.
One important application of devices for counting large numbers of small objects is in the pharmaceutical trade, at both the manufacturing and consumer usage stages. In the former, manufacturing facilities must have means at their disposal for accurately counting the number of acceptable pills they produce. For the latter, pharmacists typically count out pills to be dispensed from a storage container. While manual counting is generally reliable, there have undoubtedly been numerous cases in which an incorrect number of pills were dispensed by the pharmacist to the patient. Additionally, the manual process of counting is time-consuming from the pharmacist's point of view, whose time is more effectively spent performing tasks specific to her training.
Typically, devices designed to count small objects include inherent design limitations that render them suitable for use only in counting objects possessing a particular set of size and shape characteristics. Also, the counting devices found in the prior art are generally complex in design, and contain a relatively large number of moving parts which render the devices as a whole more expensive and prone to maintenance.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,047,620 describes a counter for objects having a tray containing a plurality of recesses therein, in which the number of recesses in which objects are to settle is variable by means of a movable slider. This type of device is intended for use by pharmacists in counting the number of pills or capsules to be dispensed to a consumer. However, this device is suitable only for the manual counting of pills having a physical shape which falls within certain size limitations.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,065,000 discloses a tablet or capsule counter having a slotted plate with a single row of slots and a rectangular counting plate slidably disposed on the slotted plate for parallel movement of the plates with respect to one another, and a slidably movable partition between the slotted plate and the base in which the whole is contained. The number of slots in the slotted plate are equal to the number of rows of openings in the counting plate, wherein the rows of openings in the counting plate are spaced apart at a distance equal to the spacings of the slots, and the width of the slots is equal to or larger than the holes on the openings in the counting plate. Again, this device is limited to only being able to count objects having very discrete physical sizes.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,013,192 to Pillon teaches a commercial pill or tablet counter using a photoelectric sensor to determine the number of pills dispensed into a bottle. A bowl for containing the pills to be counted is fitted with a network of spiraling vanes or ribs which cooperate to controllably transport the pills to be counted upwardly to a ledge having a solenoid-controlled gate means having two positions. Once a pre-determined quantity of pills have been caused to pass beyond the sensor into a desired container, the gate solenoid is activated thus causing the remaining transported pills to fall into a separate container, such as a stock bottle.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,018,358 to Johnson et al. describes a self-contained pill counting device which comprises two systems, one for providing a vacuum, and the other for driving a pill-bearing casette. The cassette contains a complex, sealed pill counting system, including a reservoir zone of pills, and a disc-like, pill conveying wheel upon which the pills are forced to reside by virtue of a complex routing of vacuum passageways. The pills are held in place at holes located on the surface of the wheel and are transported past a sensor, after which they are forced off the wheel's surface by a separator into a chute which is channeled to deliver the pills to a storage bottle.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,111,332 to Hurst et al. describes a pill dispensing device which employs an inclined pill reservoir having a rotating disk-like bottom portion connected to a motor. The bottom portion is caused to rotate, and pills are dispensed by virtue of a circumferential series of radial and angularly-spaced pill-receiving slots which are undercut in the bottom of the hopper.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,396,828 of Dino et al. teaches an inclined housing with an entrance chute which contains a removable tray having one end underlying the chute and the other end located at a lower position. A photoelectric counter is mounted in the housing to count pills as they pass from one end of the tray to the other, and the quantity is displayed on a digital readout.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,597,091 to Blake discloses a pill counter having an inclined helical ramp, arcuate in cross-section which has a pill-receiving portion at one end, a pill counting means including a dislpay downstream of the pill-receiving portion, and a pill-collecting means for gathering the pills once their quantity has been detected.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,697,721 to Johnson et al. purports to be an improvement over the '358 patent to Johnson et al., wherein the improvement includes on offset mounting of the agitator and its flexible fingers with respect to the center of rotation of the pill-conveying wheel, and the modification of the adjusting shoe for prevention of the transport of more than one pill by a given hole on the conveying wheel.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,226,539 to Cheng teaches a pill dispenser/counter having upper and a lower circular container parts, with the upper part mounted atop the lower part. The upper part has a plurality of compartments arranged in a circular configuration, wherein each compartment of the upper part contains one day's supply of pills. A door and detent mechanism are affixed to the upper compartment. The door is actuated by a mechanical linkage connected to a counter, and one is thus able to monitor the number of times the access door for the medicine has been actuated in a given time period.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,463,839 to Stange et al. discloses a counting device comprising a feed tray including a guide path and having a plurality of provisions for singularizing the objects, a means for advancing the objects along the guide path, a means for counting the objects, a means for controlling or stopping the advancement of the objects once the preset quantity has been reached, and electronic control means for coordinating the actions of the advancement control and the advance means.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,473,703 to Smith sets forth and advancement in the art of using vibratory motion to sort and count objects. The device comprises a feeder having an oscillating means and oscillation amplitude sensor coupled thereto such that the oscillations cause the objects being counted to exit the output opening of the feeder one at a time, a receiving means for catching the objects, a sensing means for registering each object received by the receiving means, a counting means, and a control means for controlling the oscillations using data from the signal received from the oscillation amplitude sensor and the sensing means used for registering each object received by the receiving means.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,587,572 to Kirby teaches a counter for tablets and the like having a hopper with a wide bottom opening for supplying the tablets. A channeling member channels the tablets from the hopper to a counting device in single file fashion, and spaced sufficiently so as to not confuse the counter. The channeling member is v-shaped in cross section, adjustably inclined, and vibratory energy is used as the motive force for the transportation.
European Patent Application 0257773 to Graham discloses the use of a transportation channel which is v-shaped in cross section in combination with vibratory energy supplied by two separate vibratory sources wherein the first vibratory source causes items to flow from the feed gate of a hopper and the second vibratory source funnels the items in single-file fashion to a slot in the base of the transportation channel.
While the foregoing patents and patent application generally describe the means available and known in the art for counting pills, the general principles of operation under which these various devices function are believed to be equally sufficient for counting of small objects other than pills, provided that minor design alterations are first made to accommodate the size and shape of the objects which are desired to be counted. However, commensurate with such modification are imported the limitations on the size and shape of the objects to be counted, that is, even once modified, the devices of prior art remain capable of only counting objects having certain a certain size and shape. It would therefore be desirable to have on hand a device which is capable of reliably counting a large number of small objects and which is not limited by the size and/or shape of the objects, as the devices of the prior art are so limited.